Shuttling Between Theatres of War

Every wreck in wartime is part of a bigger picture connected with military events elsewhere: very often the wrecks covered in this blog were lost when the seas around Britain became a theatre of war in their own right – the offensive effort against Britain.

There is, however, often a global dimension and even as some ships went down in English waters there was still a connection to events elsewhere.

We associate landing craft with the June 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, and this is, of course, correct, but the sheer scale of D-Day has tended to obscure the role of landing craft in other theatres of war at an earlier date. For example, landing craft served in Operations Corkscrew (Pantelleria), Husky (Sicily), and Avalanche (Salerno) during the Allied invasion of Italy over summer 1943.

James Routledge, electrician aboard LCT 318, recorded what happened next to the craft which took part in the Italian landings: ‘In October 1943, when in Taranto, we were recalled to our base in North Africa . . . after which we took passage to Algiers . . .Such was the secrecy about our next assignment that speculation was rife, the most likely outcomes being home or the Far East.’ [1]

A convoy of 24 landing craft [some sources state that the convoy was 30 strong [2]] set out from Gibraltar on 3 or 4 November 1943 and after a period of calm weather for several days encountered Force 9 gales off the Bay of Biscay, scattering the convoy, during which time two men were lost overboard on passage.

[Exactly one year later in 1944, my own father would be on passage in the reverse direction in convoy KMF 36 (UK–Mediterranean Fast) under similar conditions of secrecy – also believing he would be sent to the Far East – and of rough weather off Biscay, gloomily contemplating the possibility of being lost overboard, which he described to me as ‘the loneliest feeling in the world’.] [3]

October 1943’s LCT convoy is very unlikely to have sailed as a convoy of landing craft alone. The LCTs do not seem to be listed in convoy records, but it is not unknown for omissions in such records to occur, sometimes for operational secrecy, and convoy MKS 29G (Mediterreanean-UK Slow ex Gibraltar) would fit the bill as it left Gibraltar for Liverpool on 3 November, even though apparently without LCTs. It is the right date of departure from the right port and the right type of convoy, i.e. slow. [4]

There is more detail available for Convoy MKS 30, which left Port Said, Egypt, on 2 November 1943, arriving at Gibraltar on 13 November, and en route picked up a group of Landing Ship Tanks from Oran, Algeria, bound for the UK, so it seems likely that ‘our’ convoy fits into that framework of landing craft movements from the Mediterranean around that time, and again it is a ‘slow’ convoy. [5]

LCT 318 became detached from the convoy and had to resort to hand-pumping fuel to the engines and navigating ‘in the general direction of where we thought England should be’. They continued in this fashion for a few more days until a Short Sunderland flying boat, out on a mission, encountered LCT 318 and put them on the correct course. Ten days out from Gibraltar, still battling the storm at sea, LCT 318 fetched up on a beach at St. Mary’s, Isles of Scilly. [6]

It was one of five which were able to beach on the Isles of Scilly: Routledge’s account includes a dramatic photograph of LCT 354 aground on the rocks at Newford Island, St. Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, but these were temporary groundings. Three vessels of this convoy did not make it, however, and were overwhelmed on either the 13th or 14th November: LCT 333, LCT 343 and LCT 385 all foundered in a gale off Land’s End or ‘in heavy weather in the SW Approaches’ as the report to the War Cabinet had it. [7]

The report to the War Cabinet noted these losses as taking place on the 13th; elsewhere they are recorded on the 14th. [8] When this sort of date discrepancy occurs, it suggests that the loss took place overnight between one day and another, most likely in the small hours. LCT 318 had lost radio contact and it is reasonable to assume that several of the others would also have done so in those conditions, and the convoy was scattered without witnesses necessarily being nearby. With the immediate thought of saving life rather than record-keeping, it is quite understandable that times and dates recorded by survivors or rescuers would be ‘out’ or unspecific, but at least on this occasion can be tied to sometime between dusk on 13 November and dawn on 14 November.

This would seem to be borne out by Routledge’s testimony in LCT 318: ‘At dusk . . . land was sighted. A suitable beach was identified and, in near dark, we ran up the beach . . . the next morning we discovered we had landed on St. Mary’s.’

Met Office observations for 1800 GMT on 13 November 1943 reveal that off the Isles of Scilly conditions were NNW force 8 and a gale warning was in force ‘in all districts’. Conditions at NW force 7 were little better at 0100 on 14 November and remained constant at NW x N force 7 at 0700, NW 7 at 1300, decreasing to NNW 6 at 1800 that day. [9]

It seems sad that after battling much worse conditions at force 9 for so many days that LCT 333, 343 and 385 finally succumbed in force 7 winds just as they were so very nearly home, but this is not an uncommon story for many of the shipwrecks around our coastline. Very often it happens in force 7, as here (we know of over 500 wrecks recorded as lost in force 7 ‘near gale’ conditions) [10] and frequently, too, after a sustained battle with the elements over a very difficult voyage.

If the pumps became overwhelmed and the crew exhausted, and with signs of stress on the hull, the outcome was often inevitable for any vessel and unsurprisingly so for a Landing Craft Tank. As described by Lt Commander Maxwell O Miller RN, who would command I Squadron of Landing Craft at D-Day, a landing craft was:

of very shallow draught and flat-bottomed so that she had very little hold on the water . . . it had never been the intention that they should be lived in. They had originally been designed to work from shore bases in the south of England and to be manned just long enough to enable them to run across the Channel, dump their loads, and come back again. [11]

In this case, there appears to have been no loss of life other than the men lost overboard earlier in the voyage, but the landing craft of convoy OS 92/KMS 66 (Outbound South/UK–Mediterranean Slow) in October 1944, also in a gale off Land’s End, would be far less fortunate, and their story will be told in that instalment of the War Diary next year.

Footnotes

[1] Routledge, J nd “Landing Craft Tank (Mark 3) 318 – LCT (3) 318” Combined Operations online

[2] Larn R & Larn B 1995 Shipwreck Index of the British Isles: Vol. 1 Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset (London: Lloyd’s of London Press)

[3] Cant, R, 2012 unpublished oral history reminiscence, recorded and documented by Serena Cant

[4] The LCT Mk III made 10 knots, however it wasn’t only the achievable top speed, but also the range, voyage distance and type of ship that needed to be factored in. In 1943 there were no friendly ports on the European coastline between Gibraltar and the UK for convoys to refuel – they had to be capable of sustaining the voyage between the Mediterranean and the UK with the fuel that they had. My father’s ship was the proverbial ‘slowest ship in the convoy’ but could make 15 knots at top speed so it looks as if she were eligible to join a fast convoy, even if he recorded that he looked with envy at the Stirling Castle, also in his convoy, at 20 knots.

[5] Convoys MKS 29 G and MKS 30, convoyweb.org.uk

[6] Larn R & Larn B 1995 Shipwreck Index of the British Isles: Vol. 1 Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset (London: Lloyd’s of London Press); https://www.combinedops.com/HMLCT%20318.htm

[7] Weekly Résumé No.220 of the Naval, Military & Air Situation from 0700 11th November to 0700 18th November, 1943, part of the War Cabinet Papers, CAB 66, The National Archives, Kew

[8] British Vessels Lost at Sea 1914-18 and 1939-45, Section III, p54 [London: HMSO]

[9] Met Office 1943 Daily Weather Report November 1943, 13 and 14 November 1943 online

[10] Historic England wreck data

[11] Miller, M nd “Landing Craft Tank Squadron – Sword Beach, D Day”, Combined Operations published online